There is an anecdote of this Lincoln exodus which deserves repetition. A little dog belonging to one of the party strayed behind, and when the waggon had forded a difficult ice-covered stream began to yelp in pitiful helplessness on the further shore. The longlegged, kind-hearted Abe waded back for it through the freezing water. In recalling the incident, he said, "His frantic leaps of joy and other evidences of a dog's gratitude amply repaid me for all the exposure I had undergone." At length the Lincolns came to John Hanks's at Decatur, and were brought by him to their own plot of land a few miles further west. Abe went to work heartily to ensure that his parents might start well in their new home. He helped to build the cabin, and to clear, fence, and plough some ten acres before he left them. But he felt that now the time had come when he must strike out a line of his own. He was turned twenty-one, he had long been restless at home, and doubtless saw clearly that he could be of more value to himself, to the world, and to his own family besides, as an independent man. So in the summer of 1830, Lincoln began his career in the only way immediately open to him, by splitting fence-rails for a pair of jean trousers. It was a sound beginning, and, besides, thoroughly characteristic of a story in which the hero waited upon opportunity, and was many a time to acknowledge that his success had depended upon his willingness to be guided by the humblest necessities of the hour. His capital at the outset consisted of his axe, his shrewdness, his muscular strength and his attractive personality. Beyond these, he owned nothing, save humour, indomitable purpose, and the self-reliance of a true pioneer. But nothing more than these seems to have been necessary for success. Chapter II Illinois in 1830-Lincoln at New Salem-First Election Address-The Black Hawk War—Misfortunes—Becomes a Surveyor-Enters the Legislature-Romance-The Long Nine-Becomes a LawyerFirst Protest against Slavery. IN 1830, Illinois was a new country, and here, as fifty years earlier in Kentucky, the Lincolns were to be counted among the pioneers. They could not then foresee that theirs was to become one of the three most populous States in the Union, rivalling New York and Pennsylvania in importance, and destined by its central geographical position to stand as a keystone in the arch of popular liberty. When Thomas Lincoln and his family crossed the Wabash at Vincennes an old French settlement with memories of the daring march of Clarke in 1782 Chicago was a name as yet unspoken, and prairies, still scoured by the Indians, covered the northern part of the State in one wide reach of otherwise unbroken solitude. Southern Illinois, with its heavy timber, was, however, already becoming populous, and settlements were springing up through all the fertile Sangamon region. Like the Lincolns, the people were drawn principally from the South. They came, not from among the wealthy slave-owners who passed on across the |